My quest of the Derwentwater stewardship is at an end. I effectually secured Lord Lonsdales interest, but it appears from Lord Mulgraves [1] letters that the place required experience which I do not possess, & application
which I would not for any possible emolument bestow. You perhaps may suppose as Ellis & Canning seem to do, & as Lord Lonsdale does, that this
reply of Lord Mulgrave means only that that he wants the place for somebody else, – but it tallies precisely with the result of Bedfords enquiries, & thereupon I am satisfied. I am told that if
Canning has any influence in disposing of Dutens’s situation when he dies that I shall certainly succeed him. [2] – there is no harm in having got thus far.

Meantime I have found out a place of Historiographer elsewhere with an exact salary, & that too not liable to the
same unmerciful deductions. Ballantyne offers me 400£ a year to write the
historical part of his Edinb. Ann. Register, in execution of which the person xx whom he had originally engaged has woefully
disappointed him. [3] I have engaged <undertaken> for the first
volume., – after which he will see how my style of thinking & writing suit his purpose, & I shall better be able to calculate
the expence of time. The very little which I have yet done interests me enough in doing it to induce a belief that sweet remuneration
will tempt me to continue it hereafter. I write with thorough freedom, equally aloof from all parties, – & I suppose the manner in
which I shall speak of some of the ministerial measures would hardly go down with xx my Scotch employers, [4] were it not rendered delectable by the heavier censure past upon the Foxites, [5] & the peace-party. Of this I am sure that the perfect fairness & right English spirit in which it is
written will do more for the book in the way of establishing its reputation & thereby its sale than any other course which could be
pursued. How far it may be prudent in me is another question, but – blessed be God for it, I have never yet weighed consequences in the
balance with conscience.

Frere will be defended in the Quarterly by Ellis. – I assuredly could & would have justified him had it been entrusted to me. As for
Sir J Moore there needs no censure upon him, – part of the history of his retreat I have written [6] – while waiting for other materials, – & the plain
narrative itself is the severest condemnation which could be declared pronounced. It was well for him that he died in
battle.

See how literature is managed as a trade in this country. Ballantyne – & I suppose Scott is his main adviser – project this
Register, – they circulate a prospectus, & some thousand copies are xxx bespoken. He offers ten guineas a sheet to
authors; – goes to somebody for the historical part on which he is aware that the character of the book must rest, gets a bad script, –
& in the middle of August has to look for another writer – when the work is to appear in January! – It is in vain to represent to
him that the person to whom he applies next is utterly unprepared for the task, & has all his materials to seek, – his answer is
that every body would be in the same predicament, so here am I at four months notice to furnish what he estimates at 30 close octavo
sheets! – but I have protested against being compelled to consider the subject matter beyond what it will bear, & this is left at
my discretion. And I am to receive more for this than for all the poems which I have written! –

My first volume of Brazil draws near its close. [7] 432 pages are printed, & I have only one more chapter to
transcribe, – to arrange the additional notes, & put together the Bibliographical Appendix. – I am very far from feeling any
dislike to other xxx employments, – on the contrary they amuse & interest me sufficiently, – so much so, – that had I no
greater subject, I should xxxx write more of this nature for mere pleasure than I now do for mere money. Still there is a
far greater satisfaction in working upon a worthy subject, & if ever I step into the shoes of that old Frenchman with a salary
adequate to my expenditure I shall take leave of the Trade.

Duppa is in these regions of the North, he is at Durham today – dining I suppose
with my brother, & when he has made his visit to Sir J Swinburne [8] we hope he will find his way here. Rickman would have been here at this time, but his fathers death has delayed & may
possibly prevent his coming. I wish for him much, as there is no man living in whose company I take more pleasure nor from whom I
derive more improvement.

The third Quarterly has two articles of mine – that on the S Sea Missions – & Ld Valentia. [9]
A reviewal of Holmes’s American Annals has been postponed, [10] – it is a good book. I am to review Joel Barlow’s
refaccionamiento of his Vision of Columbus [11] – about which I can
make an amusing article – & also to write upon Methodism. [12]

Notes

[1] Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave (1755–1831; DNB): a diplomatist and politician who was appointed
First Lord of the Admiralty in 1807. BACK

[2] Louis Dutens (1730–1812; DNB), a French Protestant, held the post of Historiographer Royal until his
death on 23 May 1812. Southey’s campaign for the post proved unsuccessful and it went to James Stanier Clarke (c. 1765–1834;
DNB). BACK

[3] Either the poet and translator William Steward Rose (1775–1843;
DNB) or his brother the diplomatist George Henry Rose (1770–1855; DNB). Their father was the
Pittite loyalist MP George Rose (1744–1818; DNB). BACK

[6] Sir John Moore (1761–1809; DNB), Scottish General with a long and varied military career. He was also MP for Lanark
Burghs 1784–1790. After the controversial Convention of Cintra (1808), Moore was given the command of the British troops in the
Iberian peninsula. He was fatally wounded at the Battle of Corunna on 16 January 1809. For Southey’s account, see Edinburgh
Annual Register for 1808, 1.1 (1810), 442–459. Although he praised many of Moore’s personal qualities, Southey suggested
that he was not ‘equal to the difficulties of his situation’ (458). BACK

[7] The first volume of Southey’s
History of Brazil was published in 1810. BACK

[8] John Edward Swinburne, 6th
Baronet (1762–1860), whose family estate was in Capheaton, Northumberland. BACK

[9] Southey reviewed in the Quarterly Review, 2 (August 1809): Transactions of the Missionary
Society in the South Sea Islands, 24–61; George Annesley, Viscount Valentia (1770–1844), Voyages and Travels to
India, Ceylon, and the Red Sea, Abyssinia and Egypt in the Years 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806 (1809), 88–126. BACK

[10] Southey reviewed Abiel Holmes
(1763–1837), American Annals; or, a Chronological History of America, from its Discovery in 1492 to 1806 in the
Quarterly Review, 2 (November 1809), 319–337. BACK

[11] The American writer and politician, Joel Barlow
(1754–1812) published The Columbiad. A Poem, in England in 1809. It was a revised version of his Vision of
Columbus published in 1787. Southey did not review this work for the Quarterly. BACK

[12] Southey’s review of [James
Sedgwick (1775–1851; DNB)], Hints to the Public and the Legislature, on the Nature and Effect of Evangelical
Preaching. By a Barrister (1809), in Quarterly Review, 4 (November 1810), 480–514. BACK